JCATI CARBON FIBER RECYCLER - CONVEYANCE SYSTEM
Testing
The conveyance system in the JCATI Carbon Fiber Recycler can be broken into many parts that will require testing in order to ensure that it will work in a system. To begin, the hopper system will be fully purchased. However, testing will be required as it will need to be hooked up to a controller system in order to test its capability to turn on and off, or to open and close to send out carbon fiber batches. The rest of the testing comes from the entire assembly of the conveyor belt. The trusses within the frame will be tested for its ability to hold lateral forces parallel to its frame. The motor will be tested for its ability to pull the belt uphill at 2 RPM, or 1 foot per minute. The assembly of the conveyor must also be tested for its rigidity and stability in moving carbon fiber, and finally, both the weight and footprint of the hopper and conveyor belt must be tested for matching requirements.
Image and Video Gallery
After setting up the conveyance system within the carbon fiber recycler, testing began. This started off with a speed test which was done by marking a location on the conveyor belt frame. This would be used a reference for distance travelled as the time it took was measured using a phone timer. This is shown in the right most picture as well as the video on the bottom of the page. The next test which took place was conveyance test. This test consisted of having carbon fiber shreddings drop onto the belt then batch into the hopper and go through it to pile up on an oven plate at the very end. The video for this can be seen at the bottom of this page.
When it came to testing, the speed test was simple and successful. The same could not be said for the conveyance test. This test failed as only 45-65% of carbon fiber would go through the conveyance system from the shredder to the oven plate. The conveyor belt itself did very well, dropping a negligible amount of carbon fiber at the slide of the shredder. The largest issue came about with the hopper. The shreddings consisted of mostly smaller pieces which posed no issues, but there were occasionally larger pieces spanning from 1-3 inches long which would be difficult to move through the hopper motor. This ended up clogging up the hopper entrance and ended up keeping some of the smaller pieces from getting through. This was only partially mitigated by adjusting the rollers of the hopper, but it did not fix the issue to obtain a greater than 90% efficiency. As this project is a continuously improved upon system, this could be taken into consideration as future improvements are made on the shredder of the recycler to make more consistently small pieces.
Top video: Speed test to show measuring between lacing and marking.
Left video: Conveyance testing to see how much carbon fiber gets through the system.